The fruit squelched under my bare feet, bubbling pulp between my toes. It reminded me of the first day of my adventure, when I had become glued in the foul mud of the river Thames. Now, as then, I feared that I would sink so deeply I could never get out.
But I came to a sudden and solid stop only knee-deep in the breadfruit and coconut shells. I kicked a clearing round my legs and found a set of iron hinges. In a few minutes more I uncovered a heavy clasp and a handle, and the edges
of a trapdoor. I scooped away the coconuts, kicked aside the breadfruit, then knelt down and lifted the handle.
A cascade of swollen breadfruit went plopping through the trapdoor, into the darkness below me. The flies swarmed up—or down; I couldn’t tell. They merely blackened the lantern in their thousands. They turned the air to muddy water that swirled in eddies and ripples. I crouched at the edge of the hole, waiting for the blackness to settle.
Soon I saw bodies down there. Or parts of bodies. In the rolling gait of the ship, my lantern’s light slid through the shadows and the swarms of flies. I saw faces and hands, arms and ribs. I saw row upon row of dark-skinned people, all chained to the deck, and all deathly still.
I understood everything in that one, terrible look. The real cargo of the ship, its true business, had been hidden below a false panel. What we’d thought were the sounds of a haunted ship had been the last breaths of these people. The taps on the planks had been signals for help. The groans when the ship had pitched hard—those frightening groans that had raised our hairs—had been the sounds of unbearable suffering.
All because of Mr. Goodfellow!
I now knew why he had so much trouble finding captains for his ships, and why he’d sent my father on a winding route through the cannibal islands instead of straight to England from Australia. Slavery was the “new venture” that had sent him out to seek my father.
The flies were settling now on the bodies below, and they gave a shimmering life to the limbs and faces and torsos. Skinned with flies, the people seemed to twitch and turn in their chains.
I counted three or four children among the adults. They all lay on their sides, each facing the back of another, as one would arrange bananas in a row. All together there must have been three score, and I thought that all had perished. But I heard a rattle of chains, that chinking of iron that I would never forget in all my life, so often had I heard it on the wretched hulk
Lachesis
.
I drew closer to the edge of the hole, sending more breadfruit tumbling down. A shift in the lantern’s light showed me a man unlike the others.
Among the naked bodies, he alone was fair of skin, and he alone was dressed from head to toe. He wore a stocking cap and a crimson sash.
At first glance he looked like Walter Weedle. I remembered how Mr. Beezley had stared in shock at his first sight of the red-clad Weedle, and I knew he had mistaken him for this man in the hold.
I shook my lantern, listening for the slosh of oil inside. Finding plenty, I set it down at the edge of the door and clambered through the hole. The light chased the shadows from the man with the sash, and the flies went swirling again.
The fellow was barely alive, as I soon discovered. It seemed to take all his strength just to open his eyes and turn his head toward me. He said one word: “Water.”
I had brought none with me. But it was a simple task to squeeze the liquid from a spongy breadfruit, and wet his lips with that. He took it eagerly, even greedily, licking every drop. He sucked the breadfruit like a great teat, until the juices poured over his face and dribbled on the deck, then turned his head and slurped them from the plank.
He had to catch his breath after that, wheezing in the foul air. “Thank you,” he murmured. “God bless you.”
I told him my name and he blessed me again. He moved in his irons, jingling the metal as he reached for my hand. His fingers were cold as death.
“The captain,” he said. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” I told him. “They’re
all
gone, from the captain to the boy.”
His eyes closed, and such a peaceful look came over him that I thought he had passed away. But he wasn’t done yet with his dying. “A dream, then,” he murmured. “I dreamed he was here. I heard his voice.”
I gave him another drink. He managed to lift his head slightly, then eased back with a sigh.
“Where were you captured?” I asked.
He shook his head, as though he didn’t understand.
“You were taken as a slave,” I said. “Where was—”
“No!” said he. “Never a slave.” He tugged at his irons as he pulled me closer. “I was part of the crew, Tom. I was the cook.”
“The
cook?”
I asked. “You kept the journal?”
He nodded, just enough to set a tingle through his chains. “You found my story? Remember it, Tom, and tell them in England. Tell them everything.”
“I will,” I promised.
He settled back. Clearly, he had only moments to live. I found another breadfruit and let him drink its juice. “Did you know a man called Beezley?” I asked.
“Beezley!” His eyes opened wide. His voice became harsh. “Beastly, you mean! Of course, I knew Beastly.”
Those were his last words. His breath gargled, and his
head fell back on the deck. With his hand in mine, his eyes like saucers, he had gone to his maker.
I couldn’t escape him fast enough. I nearly
leapt
through the hatch. I lowered the door over the sight of those slaves and those flies, covered it quickly, and snatched up the lantern. All in a state, I flung myself out to the open air.
Midgely and Boggis were waiting. Midge had his bucket, brimming with water that he’d drawn from the sea. The tail of its rope was still in his hand. “Have a wash, Tom,” he said. “Then tell us what you seen.”
Boggis went round the hatch, closing the dogs as I scrubbed my arms and legs. We moved up to the foredeck, where we seated ourselves around the capstan like petals on a flower.
“So we heard them dying?” said Midge, when I’d told my tale. “Oooh, it gives you the shivers, don’t it?”
“We could have saved them,” I said.
“Not if we didn’t know they was there,” said Boggis.
I watched the stars slide through the rigging, swinging in and out from behind the sails. “One thing’s certain,” I said. “The cook knew Mr. Beezley.”
“How could he?” said Boggis.
“Because your wonderful Mr. Beezley was on this ship,” I said.
“Maybe not,” said Midge. “Did the cook say
when
he knowed him?”
“No,” I said. “I suppose he didn’t. But when Mr. Beezley saw Weedle in his red sash he—”
“He thought he saw a lunatic,” said Boggis.
The pair had an answer for everything, and I didn’t want to argue. I decided that I would have to challenge Mr. Beezley straight out, and that I would do it as soon as he came up to the deck in the morning. During my watch at the wheel I rehearsed the things I would say. When the sails began to take their gray shapes in the blackness, I put a strop on the spokes to stop the wheel from turning and went to stand by the hood of the companionway, where the castaways would soon emerge.
I quickly regretted it. The pair came tramping up the ladder, unaware that I was waiting. Mr. Beezley was talking.
“I put the word in Weedle’s ear,” he said.
“Eager as eggs, is he?” asked Mr. Moyle, hidden below me.
Mr. Beezley laughed. I heard him take another step toward the deck. “The cripple won’t be any trouble. Nor will blind Batty. I don’t know about the big bruiser.”
“He’s stupid, but he’s strong,” replied Mr. Moyle. “I want to see the look on King George’s old mug when he gets a squint of Gaskin Boggis.”
What a riddle that became! It was scarcely possible that someone like Mr. Moyle could expect an audience with King George IV, and even more unlikely that he would take Boggis along. Yet entwined in the riddle was a small thread of hope. If Mr. Moyle even
imagined
that he might meet with the King of England, where could he be heading but to England itself?
“Now what of Tom Tin?” asked Mr. Beezley. “That boy’s a nuisance. I want him out of the picture.”
“Soon,” said Mr. Moyle.
“One fell swoop is best, don’t you think?”
The pair was nearly at the deck. I saw one of Mr. Beezley’s tattooed hands reaching for a hold to hoist himself up. In a moment he would emerge and find the wheel deserted.
The top of Mr. Beezley’s head appeared. I could hear Mr. Moyle pressing up behind him, and my heart was in my throat.
It was only sheer luck that saved me.
The ship stumbled on a wave. Held by the strop, like a dog on a leash, it couldn’t round up to the wind. Instead it rolled sideways, sending spouts of green water shooting through the scuppers. Mr. Moyle, caught out of balance, stumbled backward down the stairs. He must have clutched on to Mr. Beezley, for a string of thumps and oaths came through the hatch, then a howl of pain from Mr. Moyle.
I dashed to the wheel and lifted the strop. The spokes cracked my knuckles as the ship reeled upright. The water
that had surged across the deck went surging out again, tumbling over the rail in froth and cream.
When Mr. Moyle came up to the deck he was holding a hand to his jaw. Either he had thumped it on something, or Mr. Beezley had thumped it for him. The pain from those rotted teeth must have been terrible, for his eyes were watering. “You half-boiled nizzie!” he growled. “I’m going to—”
“Mr. Moyle!”
Both of us turned to look at Mr. Beezley. The way that Mr. Moyle fell instantly silent and shuffled off to the rail made me see that he, too, was being kept on a leash of sorts. I was afraid of what could happen if he was ever turned loose.
The beard that framed Mr. Beezley’s face was growing ragged. It reminded me then of a lion’s mane, and it shook as he walked to my side. He looked down at the compass.
“I know what you’re thinking, boy,” he said. “I know what goes on up here.” He tapped my head—hard—with his knuckles. “You’d like to see the end of me, wouldn’t you?”
“Why should I want that?” I asked.
“Because you fear me,” said he, very matter-of-fact. “And well you should, boy. Yes, well you should.”
Mr. Beezley was never more frightening than when he talked of dark things. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the cook, to challenge him at all, and only stood there with shivers in my neck.
I was glad when he wandered away, until I heard him muttering behind my back with Mr. Moyle. It seemed his “one fell swoop” might happen right then. But I realized that as long as we kept at sea we were safe, as there were barely enough people to work the ship as it was.
North we went, another hundred sea miles from dawn to dawn. Then, again, I was standing at the wheel, waiting for the castaways to come up from below. But today they were late, and they still hadn’t appeared when Benjamin Penny came to take my place.
He climbed the ladder and made straight for the mizzen shrouds, where he kept his wooden box. He untied the lashings and dragged it over.
“Where’s Mr. B?” he said. “Where’s Mr. Moyle?”
“Still below,” I told him.
“Well, push off,” he said. “Your turn’s done.”
Penny loved to steer the ship. It was probably the first time in his life that he’d been given a useful task, and—like Weedle—he worshiped Mr. Beezley for this trust he’d been given.
“Go on. Hop it, Tom.” He pushed the box against my feet and climbed aboard it, trying to crowd me from the wheel. His webbed hands prodded at my arms; his twisted bones knocked on my hip.
I couldn’t bear the touch of Benjamin Penny. I gave up the wheel and let him squirm into place behind it. He glanced up at the sails, his sharp little teeth giving him the wicked smile of a cat.
“You’ve pinched her,” he said. “Look at them luffs.”
By instinct I did as he said, surprising myself that the language of sailing men had become such a part of me. I saw the sails rippling along their windward edges and knew he was right; I had let the ship wander too close to the wind.
It gave Penny a great pleasure to point this out, and he made it clear that he had to correct the mistake I’d made. He
heaved mightily on the wheel, though a touch would have been enough.
“Don’t bother waiting for Mr. B,” said Penny. “He’ll be glad he don’t have to see your face. He don’t care figs for you, Tom.”
“Nor for you,” said I.
“Humbug!” So Penny had even adopted his hero’s words. “He’s taking me and Weedle to look for gold. But he ain’t taking
you
, and he ain’t taking Batty neither.”
Batty
. It was the second time in as many mornings I’d heard that name.
“You wait,” he said. “Mr. B’s got something planned for you. Poz! He does.”
“What sort of thing?” I asked.
He shrugged, gloating horribly. “All I know is, I wouldn’t want to be in
your
shoes.”
“Perhaps you are,” I told him. “What if he’s planning the same thing for you?”
A look of doubt came and went on Penny’s face. “Humbug!” he said again. “Mr. B’s taking me under his wing, he is, and if you say otherwise I’ll stick you for it, Tom. I swear to God I’ll stick you.”
I went to the cookhouse and watched Midgely bustle about, filling a bucket with potatoes. With the ship sailing, and the whole room at a slant, everything seemed to hang at a weird angle. Skillets and towels swayed far from the wall, while the bucket seemed to float up from Midgely’s hand. It was a sight that still turned my stomach, and I kept looking out at the horizon.
“What do you know about the gold in America?” I asked.
“Only that we’re going looking for it,” said Midge. “Funny, ain’t it? I can’t see it, and you don’t need it, but there we go.”
“Did you know Gaskin’s going to meet King George?” I asked next.
Midge laughed out loud. “Oh, he ain’t going to meet no King. Who told you that?”
“Mr. Moyle. I heard him tell Mr. Beezley he’s taking Gaskin to meet the King.”
“You didn’t hear him right, Tom.” Midge put his bucket on the table and climbed up on a chair. “How’s Mr. Moyle going to meet King George if he’s digging for gold in America?”